Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Memorial Day

National holidays are occasions for
floods of clichés
uttered at ceremonies in every city and every village and dutifully
recorded in the next day's newspaper. Speakers from the President on
down thank our veterans for the sacrifices they made for us. Some of
them gave their lives. Many others returned from Iraq, from
Afghanistan, from Vietnam, from Korea changed forever. They may be
missing limbs, they may no longer be able to function in civilian
life. Their families may fall apart; significant numbers of veterans
end up committing suicide.

Speakers at Memorial Day ceremonies
repeat over and over again that veterans made these serious
sacrifices so that we might continue to enjoy the freedoms we have.
For their defense of our freedoms we thank the veterans.

But surely there is something
seriously wrong here. Was Saddam Hussein a threat to American
freedoms? Are the Taliban? Saddam Hussein oppressed the people of
Iraq. They might thank our soldiers although, seeing the destruction
we have wrought in their country since 1991, Iraqis may well be of
two minds about that. But Saddam Hussein never was a threat to
American institutions.

Even Osama bin Laden, though a
threat to American lives, was not a threat to our institutions. We
ourselves, our representatives in Congress, chose to limit American
freedoms thought the Patriot Act after 9/11. But that was our
choice. Bin Laden did not do that. We chose to restrict freedom for
the sake of greater security.

Why are we telling lies to ourselves
about American soldiers—men sand women—saving our freedom when
they did nothing of the sort?

In recent weeks conservative
candidates for president have let it be known that they now, by
hindsight, consider the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to have been
mistakes. We should never have invaded either country they now
believe. Candidates for president do not hold opinions that are not
shared by significant numbers of voters. These politicians simply
echo beliefs widely held by the public.

Many of the people who thank our
veterans for protecting our freedoms also believe that the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be justified, that, on the whole, they
accomplished nothing worthwhile.

It is obvious why they lie about
that on the day dedicated to veterans. Many of those who returned
alive are still suffering the after-effects of combat. Few of the
patriots attending the Memorial Day festivities protested these wars.
They were content to have soldiers be seriously injured or even
killed, even after it appeared that there were no weapons of mass
destruction and Osama bin Laden was not in Afghanistan. They laughed
at those of us who protested these wars.

Now they have to admit that they did
nothing to stop soldiers being injured in combat when that served no
purpose.

Memorial Day is the day of truth.
Many honorable men and women incurred life long suffering for no good
reason at all. These wars were engineered by a group of men, all of
whom had refused to go to war when they were at an age to do that.
George Bush, Vice-president Cheney, Wolfowitz—the entire crew of
war-mongers—had refused to face combat.

What can we, as a nation, say to the
veterans who were sent off into combat for no good reason at all?

That is a terrifying thought that
should make all of us feel very guilty. It is true, we owe a great
debt to veterans not for what they did for us, but for what we did to
them, namely to injure them seriously without good reasons.

On Memorial Day we lie about it. The
rest of the year we pass city ordinances forbidding homeless veterans
and others from panhandling and we refuse to provide adequate funds
for the Veterans' Administration.

It is high time that we stop
repeating pious patriotic clichés, taking pictures of parades, and
start to tell the truth about these wars and its victims. It is time
that we be honest and admit that we failed to end these wars a long
time ago, that we failed to save the men and women whom we thank on
Memorial Day and make serious efforts to repair the damages we
allowed to be done to them.